If You Want Gigabit Internet, Move Here

If you want a truly lightning-fast Web connection, consider packing up and getting a place in these U.S. locations.

In an effort to expand gigabit Internet access nationwide, former FCC Chairman Julius Genachoski in January 2013 issued a "Gigabit City Challenge," calling for all 50 states to have at least one community with gigabit Internet access by 2015. We're not quite there yet, but a lot of progress has been made.

It's become a bit of a race between private and public providers. Google, of course, kicked it off with the announcement that it would provide its gigabit Google Fiber to Kansas City. Later, The Wall Street Journal reported that a small telco in rural Vermont, Vtel, planned to halve Google's offer, providing gigabit services for just $35. Many cities and towns have gone online with gigabit Internet since, some of which have signed on to the the Next Century Cities program.

The big Internet providers don't like threats to their lucrative Internet services. Some successfully lobbied a few states to get city-owned broadband taken off the table. It's mainly Tennessee and North Carolina, but laws make it hard in as many 20 states, even tech-centric California.

It's silly that the cable ISPs even fight the fiber. In the very near future, cable modems supporting the DOCSIS 3.1 standard will arrive, and that means existing cable infrastructure can soon support speeds as high as 2 gigabit per second! Of course, to get there, the ISPs have to make some changes not only to the equipment people have at home, but costly upgrades at the other end. They also have to adjust prices to compete with fiber networks, which don't tend to cost that much more, whether privately owned or publicly run.

Sounds like the future is bright for gigabit Internet connections in the USA—but that doesn't help you right now. Where can you go if you want to live where the gigabit is?

We've found several areas that have or plan to offer gigabit access (or close to it). If you're thinking of moving, think about these locations. Also check out PCMag's roundup of Fastest ISPs to see where the fastest ISPs are no matter what the technology used. Get signed up for some high speed, before the inevitable race for 10-gigabit Internet kicks off.